How to Be Persuasive

Updated: September 13, 2019
Whether you’re trying to convince your parents to let you watch a grown-up movie or aiming to persuade your boss to shift your team project in a different direction, a few persuasion techniques can help you get your message across. First, do thorough research and examine all sides of your argument so you’ll be able to back up your point of view. Then try using one of the 3 rhetorical strategies to persuade your audience. Establish your expertise through a character appeal (ethos), use storytelling to engage your listener’s emotions (pathos), or make an appeal to reason and logic by presenting the facts (logos). Use a combination of these strategies and stay in tune with your listener’s responses. Soon enough you’ll be sweet-talking your way to success!

Preparing Your Case

Gather evidence to support your argument. Whether you’re trying to convince your reluctant friend to go to a party with you or you’re presenting a proposal to a skeptical board, you need to be the expert. Do as much research as you need to gather convincing evidence in support of your case. Where you get your information will depend on what you’re arguing about, but aim to use only the most reliable, legitimate sources.

If you’re not sure that what you’re saying is true, or if there’s a chance your listener will know you’ve made an error, they won’t be easily convinced.

To encourage your friend to go to the party, make sure you know exactly who else is going. This way, you can confidently say “Well, Kendra, Liam, and Chantel are going. They think it’ll be fun!”

Prepare what you’ll say to counterarguments in advance. Expect that your listener will respond with a few opposing opinions. While gathering evidence on your topic, brainstorm all the possible counterarguments that they might make. Get to know what evidence your opposition will rely upon and why they hold their opinion. Then plan out how you’ll respond to that perspective. Gather evidence to support your defense.

Continuing the previous example, beyond just knowing who’s going to the party, you’ll need to find out who isn’t going and why.

When your friend comes back with a counterargument (“Yeah but Rick isn’t going so it’s not the whole group”) you can assert your defense with proof (“Rick is heading out of town, but he said he’d much rather be at the party.”)

If you want to get a dog but your parents are worried about you being too busy to take care of it, be ready to explain how you’ll fit morning walks and daily feeding into your schedule.

Bring up the topic in a way that the other person will respond well to. Modify your approach based on your listener’s personality and how they like to process new information. Think back to a time that person agreed to something you presented, and try to recall how you brought up the topic and convinced them. Then model your approach based on this successful example.

If you have a skeptical boss who likes to feel like the hero, don’t rush in with an ultra-confident approach. Your boss will instantly dismiss your proposal. Instead, present the case as if you need your boss’ wisdom and advice. Make it seem like it’s their idea, and they’ll likely end up in support of your project.

If you’re trying to get a teacher to extend your project’s deadline, and you know she’s a big supporter of your school sports team, frame your request as a conflict that she could solve: “So I’ve been working really hard on this report but this week has been full of practices for the big game tomorrow...” This way, she might offer you an extension without you having to directly ask!

Asserting Your Credibility (Ethos)

Explain why you're an expert on the topic. Share proof of your credibility and experience so that your listener automatically trusts you as an authority. Early on in your conversation, mention the experiences and past successes have given you lots of experience in the area you’re talking about. Use examples like these to explain why your case is worth listening to:

If you’re trying to convince your parents to get a family pet, talk about how you’ve been doing a great job pet-sitting for a neighbor and you know all about pet care.

If you’re convincing a teacher to let you take an advanced class, mention your previous good grades as evidence that you can handle the challenge.

If you’re trying to get a job, tell the interviewer about degrees, achievements, and awards that make you an expert in your industry.

Use keywords that show you know a lot about your topic. Use vocabulary words related to the topic you’re discussing. Instead of avoiding complicated terminology, abbreviations, or phrases, look up these terms ahead of time and make sure you know how to use them. Then drop them into your conversation and you’ll impress your listener. This is especially useful if your listener is an expert in your topic; aim to speak their language so they see you as a fellow expert.

If you’re trying to sell a product to a customer who’s a photographer, list off camera specs with confidence. They’ll feel like you understand their line of work and may be open to hearing your pitch.

If you’re speaking to your parents about getting your first credit card, don’t shy away from financial jargon. Instead, work terms like “credit score” and “billing cycle” into the conversation to show that you know what you’re talking about.

Say you’re trying to convince a classmate to let you practice guitar with their band after school. If they consider their group a “band,” don’t call it a “club.” You’ll sound like you don’t respect what they’re doing and they might not let you hang around.

Back up your argument with convincing visuals like a graph or the right outfit. Think about what your listener might expect to see, and provide just that. If you want to establish yourself as a certain type of authority, dress the part. Include visual cues in your outfit or your visual aids that your audience can pick up on.

If you’re trying to get your family to let you get a part-time job while you’re still in school, make sure you’re well groomed and nicely dressed when you strike up the conversation. Don’t make the request while you’re in sloppy sweatpants; you won’t look responsible enough to start working.

If you’re submitting a big research paper to a professor, make sure it looks crisp and professional. Don’t allow sloppy formatting or wrinkled pages to distract from the quality of your writing.

To get your parents to sign you up for gymnastics class, put on a leotard and start doing cartwheels around the living room. You’ll look like you need an outlet for your skills and energy.

Demonstrate confidence in yourself and your arguments. Stand up straight, look others in the eye, smile, and keep your voice even and enthusiastic. Assert your viewpoints as facts rather than weakening them with “I think X” or “I believe Y.” Say “I’m confident about X” to show your listener just how strongly you believe in your message.

Nerves and uncertainty can ruin your ability to be persuasive. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, your listener won’t have confidence in you either.

Listeners tend to assume a confident communicator is correct and trustworthy. So if you show and tell your significant other that you’re confident about how safe skydiving is, they’ll start to believe you.

Engaging Emotions (Pathos)

Use group pronouns like “we,” “us,” and “our.” Avoid using pronouns like “I” and “me” or referring to your listener as “you.” This places you in opposition to your listener and may make your attempts to convince them feel like a personal attack. Instead, use words like "we," “us,” and “our” to make it sound like you and your listener are on the same side. Reinforce this group mentality with terms like “together” or “all of us.”

Inclusive language is much more effective than language that sets the persuader apart from their listener. It encourages your listener to view you as a single group unit with similar interests, rather than two separate entities.

Rather than telling your group project teammates, “I saw a mistake on the poster. You should fix it,” try saying, “Let’s fix that mistake on the poster” as you hand them the poster and the white-out.

Share a powerful story that will engage your listener’s emotions. To pull at your listener’s heart strings, tell a captivating story that represents your case. Use your evidence to craft a true but compelling narrative about a main character who faces ups, downs, twists, and turns. This character could be you, a member of a community, or a made-up character as long as the story illustrates what you’re trying to prove. Use descriptive language to illustrate how things are now and how greatly they could be improved with your vision in place.

If you’re arguing for a decision that will help improve a situation, illustrate how dire the situation is right now.

For example, a sad story about how dark and gloomy your dorm room is and how you can’t focus on your homework might encourage your guardian to buy you an expensive floor lamp. The “bad” ending would be failing grades; the “good” ending would be reaching the top of the class.

Incite anger or pity to prompt an action. In combination with powerful storytelling, encourage your listener to get mad or feel pity. Speak in an emotional tone of voice and get your body moving with expressive gestures that show just how infuriated or inspired you feel. If your listener starts mirroring your emotions, demonize the opposite choice to get them even more worked up.

While managing and presenting certain emotions is a persuasive strategy, don’t let it become manipulative or disingenuous. Be as authentic as possible and try to only express emotions you truly feel.

If your dad isn’t enthusiastic about letting you go to a new friend’s sleepover party, say something about how not going could make you lonely at school: “I’m just starting to make friends with this group, and I really don’t want to miss the chance to get to know them better. Otherwise I won’t really have any good friends in my class this year.”

Sprinkle rhetorical questions into your persuasive rant to get your listener nodding along or shaking their head. Try phrases like “Can’t we put an end to this once and for all?” (Yes!) or “Can you believe how horrible the current situation is?” (No!).

Flatter your listener by placing them at the center of your story. Appeal to your listener’s vanity. Instead of showing the negative implications for a character in your emotional story, place your listener at the heart of your narrative. Explain the consequences they’ll face if they don’t follow your perspective, then describe the positive turnout in a way that churns up their hopes and desires. Help your listener see the reward.

Lure your listener with flattering compliments to make them feel good about following your lead.

Make irresistible offers they won’t be able to refuse, based on their values or vanity.

If you’re trying to get your sister to pick out a different party dress so you can borrow it later, tell her how gorgeous and radiant she looks in the blue sparkly one.

If you want your friend to buy a certain video game so you can play it together, gush about how amazing and unbeatable he is at that type of game.

Relying on Facts and Logic (Logos)

Start with facts your listener can agree with to get them in an open mindset. Before getting into the heavy facts and figures, begin with ideas your listener already agrees with. Present these in a way that nudges your listener confirm that they agree. Try framing the general topic as a question your listener can say yes to, and consider ending your points with the rhetorical “Right?”

You could open up your argument with 2 questions like this: “1,500 children attend this school, right?” (Yes, this is a basic fact.) “Do we agree that the lack of after-school support is a problem for these students and our community?” (Yes, this is the topic of the conversation.)

Your listener will be nodding along in no time. With this momentum, they’ll be more likely to get on board with your more complex arguments later on.

Support your claims with factual evidence. Once you move past the obvious or noncontroversial points, you’ll need to back up your more controversial claims with proof. Draw quantitative facts, statistics, study results, and other such evidence from reputable sources. Bring visual aids or original source material as additional proof. Try to memorize the most important facts so you can easily bring them up in conversation.

Try generating a spreadsheet to show your boss just how profitable your idea will be or quoting a recent study that addresses your topic.

Pull up a quote for the internet plan you want your roommates to agree to and show them just how affordable to rates are for the service you’d be receiving.

If you place facts and figures right in front of your listener that shows how logical your case is, they’ll find it a lot harder to argue against you.

Present logical arguments. Walk your listener through logically sound and valid arguments. Use inductive reasoning to prove your point. Start by explaining a specific case study and then draw broader conclusions from it. Or try the opposite approach through deductive reasoning. To do this, begin by proving a general fact and then apply it to your specific case. Avoid making logical fallacies, which means using facts to make incorrect conclusions.

Here’s how you could use inductive reasoning to prove your point to your parents: “Universities are all encouraging students to study abroad. Look at this brochure our college sent out about the benefits of travel and studying abroad. I think taking that study trip to the Andes would really expand my worldview.”

One logical fallacy to avoid is known as post hoc ergo propter hoc. This involves making an incorrect assumption based on the order of events. For instance, you’d be wrong to argue that the library caused your headache because you went to the library and then developed a headache.

Another fallacy is the slippery slope. This is where you’d say describe a chain of events where the first point seems to lead to the final point. For example: “If you let me stay home from school tomorrow, I’ll be able to practice with the band so we can become rich and famous rockstars.” This implies that staying home will bring you fame and fortune, which isn’t logical or very convincing.

Delivering Your Argument

Start the conversation when your listener is in a calm and open mindset. Timing is everything when it comes to persuading someone. Be sensitive to where your listener is along their journey toward making a decision. Feel free to ask directly. If it’s not the right time yet, focus on maintaining a positive relationship with your listener until they’re more in the mood to make a decision.

If you’re trying to sell someone a couch, chat them up when they're looking at couches, not when they’re in the refrigerator aisle.

Pay attention to their behaviors and adapt accordingly. If they're spending a lot of time looking at different couches, and they’ve told you they want to buy something this weekend, stick by their side to offer your expertise.

If your prospective customer said they don’t want to buy a couch until next September, don’t harass them as they're walking past toward the exit.

Create a sense of urgency or scarcity to jolt your listener into action. Use an expiration date on your sales offer to show that the decision has to be made quickly. Tell your friends that there are only a few concert tickets left. Let your reluctant coworker know you’re all heading out to lunch “right now!” and if they don’t act soon they’ll be left behind. Urge your listener to act quickly for fear of missing their chance.

If your listener only has a few moments to think about the decision, they'll have less time to explore and listen to their opposing instincts.

Include calls-to-action like “act now” or “limited time only” in your pitch to get the results you’re looking for.

Address counterarguments and defend yourself against them. Before your listener has a chance to jump in with an opposing view, tell them what they’re already thinking. Be up-front about the opposing viewpoint. Present it in an empathetic way, so your listener feels heard and understood. Then logically argue your defense against it.

A strategy like this will not only help your listener connect with you since they feel understood, but it will boost your credibility since you’ll appear to know your subject inside and out.

This is a powerful approach that combines pathos, ethos, and logos all in one.

If you want to go out with friends even when you have a lot of homework, rather than waiting for your dad to say “But what about your homework?” say something like “Ok, I know you’re probably wondering about all the homework I have. But I actually have a plan to do chemistry and English tonight before dinner and study for my history exam during my study hour tomorrow morning.” He’ll be impressed with how well you’ve thought it all out.

Remain calm while you deliver and defend your argument. Don’t allow yourself to become overpowered by your emotions. Even if you’re delivering an emotional appeal, keep your feelings and temper in check.

Slow down your speech if your listener agrees, but speed up if they disagree. If you sense your listener may agree with you, or you notice them nodding along as you present your case, slow down your speech. Give them plenty of time to soak in your evidence and insert their own arguments in support of your case. But if you have a tougher listener who disagrees, run through your arguments at a quick pace so they can’t keep up their critiques.

In conversation, pause to allow someone who agreement with you to articulate their own affirmative viewpoints.

Don’t allow someone who disagrees with you to seize control of the conversation.

If you move and speak quickly, a disagreeing listener won’t have much time to process their own counterarguments. They’ll get swept away in what you’re saying and may be overwhelmed into agreeing.

Be ready to ease off or get more aggressive based on your listener’s reactions. After you present something persuasive, watch for your listener’s reactions. Observe facial expressions, body language, and even breath. All of these behaviors can tell you what someone is thinking. Avoid sticking to a rigid script; being able to react to your listener's responses can make you much more successful. If you sense your listener starts to get annoyed after you get more direct, soften up your tone and be more empathetic. If they seem distracted or dismissive, try laying down the cold, hard facts in a more direct manner.

Held breathes indicate anticipation while a sharp gasp usually indicated surprise.

Squinted eyes indicate doubt or displeasure, as do crossed arms and a cocked head.

Upright posture with a forward lean indicates interest.

Tips

If you’re writing a persuasive speech for school or getting ready to deliver a public presentation, try out any of these strategies to make your speech more effective.